PAYMENTS

There are now many companies offering a card payment processing service, and each have a slightly different offering. If you are able, research the different options, ask plenty of questions and reach an understanding of the fees for each offering. For example, consider that as well as transaction fees, there may also be different fees for processing refunds. Find out exactly how much your business will be charged for each type and value of transaction so you can compare your options and find the most suitable online payment solution for you. There are also independent brokerage firms (like comparethemarket.com), who you can contact for advice specific to your business needs. Sometimes they can broker a better rate on your behalf. However, they don’t have partnerships with all of the service providers:

www.acceptcards.co.uk and 01422 372 818

www.annectouk.co.uk and 03333 447 010

Card Readers
Card readers can process payments with just your smartphone or laptop. Payments can be taken via the card reader (pictured), on the phone or via your website. Fortunately for small businesses, the majority of card readers are contract free, have no monthly fee, and no minimum sales volume. They transfer payments to your account within 1-3 working days and can text or email customers with receipts. There is no need to set up a merchant account with a bank to use a card reader so you can get up and running fairly easily.

Direct Debits
​​​A direct debit is an instruction from a customer to their bank, authorising you to collect varying amounts from their account, provided that you give your customer advance notice of the collection amounts and dates. So typically, for a veg box, or week of milk, your customer would receive an email with the weekly total, and unless they ask it to be stopped, the amount would be transferred from their account to you in the following days.

Direct debit can work out cheaper than either using a card reader or by taking a payment via your website, but this depends on the transaction amount. However, direct debit is definitely less time consuming than card payments, and is well worth considering: for regular customers, you won’t have to ask for payment details every time you need to take payment.

More information about using direct debit can be found here: https://www.bacs.co.uk/Services/bacsschemes/directdebit/Pages/Collecting.aspx

Online Payments
There are two main ways to accept card payments online, either using a ‘payment gateway’, or a ‘payment service provider’.

To use a payment service provider, you won’t first need to set up a merchant account, which is needed to use a payment gateway. Payment service providers deal with the entire process of taking payments and paying them into your account.

To use a ‘payment gateway’, you first need to set up a merchant account which will have its own associated fees. The merchant account is needed to hold the credit card payment received by the payment gateway before it can be transferred into your bank account.

Phone Payments
You can accept card payments over the phone. There are a number of services that allow businesses to take payment details using any credit or debit card and these include those that issue you with a card reader (above).

Pay by Link
Pay by Link allows businesses to send customers a unique link, taking them to a secure payment page for them to complete their transaction. Pay by Link is especially valuable for newer businesses who may not have a website live yet, or those who want to take orders through email or via social media. Providers offering Pay by Link include Adyen, Trust Payments and Worldpay (compare this article).